The longest I’ve ever stayed awake is 52 hours.
It was 2010 and I was writing my university dissertation at the very last minute. I sat in the 24 hour library for 2 and a half days, fuelling myself with Red Bull and chocolate raisins. When I got home and looked in the mirror, my face had turned a weird yellow colour.
Just last year, I stayed up for 30 hours before handing in my Masters dissertation.
Let’s just say time management is not my forte.
Fortunately, procrastination has never caused me any major problems (I always manage to pull things off at the last minute) but it makes everything more difficult than it needs to be.
And that’s exactly what happened with my language learning projects in October. Overall, I pulled it off. I hit most of my targets and I’m pleased with how much I learned.
But my procrastination really got in the way. I knew I should be doing something, but I ended up fiddling with my phone, going on Facebook, getting lost in a wikipedia web, staring out the window with my finger up my nose etc. etc. You know how it is.
To hit my targets I had to cram lots in over the weekend. I felt like I was constantly “catching up” which was stressful. And stress makes things more difficult to learn and remember.
If I can just break my procrastination habits, I’ll have more time, feel more relaxed and things will start falling into place.
In November I’m declaring war on procrastination. I’ve got three weapons:
I’m going to use the pomodoro technique, which involves setting a timer for 25 minutes, working intensively, then taking a 5 minute break. Pomodoro means tomato in Italian, named after the kitchen timer that the inventor used to time his work intervals. It’s based on the idea that everyone can study for 25 minutes. It doesn’t feel overwhelming so it’s easy to get started.
In October I knew what I was supposed to be doing, but I didn’t plan when I was going to do it. In hindsight, this was probably the main problem as it gave me too much freedom to faff about. This month I’m going to make a daily study timetable and… actually stick to it!
I broke the cardinal rule of studying as I often had my phone next to me while I was working. This month, I’m going to make a point of removing all distractions so I can really focus during my 25-minute stints.
As well as nixing procrastination, there’s one more way I’d like to improve my learning this month:
In October I spent lots of time absorbing the language through listening and reading, and not enough time using it in speaking and writing. I’m a big believer in learning by doing, but my schedule isn’t reflecting this at the moment. In November, I’m going to focus more on using what I learn. I’ll do this in 3 ways:
I’m going to make listening and reading more productive by adding mini 2 minute talking sessions. When I’m listening or reading something, I’ll write down key words. Then I’ll use these keywords to speak aloud for a couple of minutes about what I just read/heard.
Every 3 days, I’ll do a session dedicated to recycling the language I’ve been learning over the previous 2 days. In these sessions I’ll use the language I’ve been studying by making videos, writing stories and giving example sentences. I’m also going to use them to write conversation questions, so I can re-use new words and grammar points in conversations with my language tutors.
I’m going to try the translation method which involves taking a short dialogue and translating it into your native language, then back again into the language you’re learning. This method helps you zoom in on the differences between your native language and the language you’re learning. It also helps you build sentences and gives you instant feedback so you can spot common mistakes and iron them out.
At the moment I’m learning 5 languages. Each month, I have a sprint language which I focus on intensively and 4 marathon languages, which I study in a more relaxed fashion. In the sprint language, I immerse myself in the language as much as possible through daily activities like watching TV, reading and listening to the radio. My sprint language for November is Italian.
I spent October studying for my advanced (C2) Italian exam, but I’ve just run into a big problema! The only exam session is on a Thursday, which I can’t do as I’m a teacher and I can’t take holidays during term time. The next one isn’t until June 2017, so I’ve decided to lay off the exam preparation stuff for a while and come back to it in April/May time.
On the plus side, I’ll have more time to focus on things I’ve been meaning to do for ages in Italian.
There are 2 main areas I’d like to work on:
1. Culture
2. Grammar
I live in Milan, and many of my friends are Italian, so I’m already immersed in Italian culture to some extent. But I know I can do more. The more I learn about Italian culture, the more I can integrate into the country I live in. And feeling close to a culture does wonders for your language skills. So this month, I want to dive even further into Italian culture. Here’s the plan:
I’ll watch one classic Italian film per week. This month’s films are Gomorrah, Il Divo, La Grande Bellezza and Amici Miei.
In my downtime, I’m going to get through the first two series of the Italian sitcom, Boris.
In October I set myself the goal of watching 8 e mezzo, a current affairs programme which discusses the political situation in Italy. I used to love this programme, but forcing myself to watch it everyday has turned it into a bit of a yawn fest. So this month, I’m going to take it down to 2 episodes per week. I’m also going to start watching Report, an investigative journalism series which features interviews with people from all over Italy. This will be particularly good for finding out about different regions and hearing a variety of accents. Finally, I’m going to carry on watching the news every day.
I’ve just finished my book Gomorrah, so in November I’m aiming to read my next one, Cairo Calling by Claudia Galal.
My playlists this month are going to be filled with classic Italian artists like Fabrizio de André, Rino Gaetano, Paolo Conte and some newer ones like il triangolo, dente and i Cani.
I’d like to revisit some bits and pieces of Italian grammar, so I’m going to work through 1 chapter a day of my grammar book. I’ll also have a recycling day every 3 days so I can apply what I’ve learned in new contexts.
On days when I manage to fit 2 hours in (which certainly won’t be everyday!) my timetable will look something like this:
Culture (1hr): TV: news/8 e mezzo/Report/Boris + mini talk
Grammar (1hr): 25 minutes translation method + 25 minutes from grammar book
I’ll read and watch films during my downtime in the evenings and at weekends.
These two languages are my newest so I’m still building up grammar and vocabulary. In October I set myself the goal to do 1 chapter per day of my textbook (except weekends) and learn 40 new words per week. I also planned to do 2 lessons per week on italki to practice my speaking. I didn’t always stick to the plan perfectly, but I did manage it most of the time. I feel like I’m making good, steady progress, so I’m going to keep riding this wave. By Christmas I want to:
1. Finish my textbooks
2. Learn at least 1000 words in German (currently 878)
3. Learn at least 800 words in Chinese (currently on 550)
I’ll be starting a new job in November, which means I’ll no longer have time to do 2 lessons each week. I’m going to try to squeeze one per week in so I don’t get out of the habit of speaking.
Finally, I’m going to include mini talks and recycling days to practice using what I learn.
In October, I set myself the delightfully lazy goal of watching 20 minutes of French reality TV per day. This is going well as hearing spontaneous speech is really helping my listening skills. I’m going to keep this up in November.
Although I’ve been thoroughly enjoying my lazy French approach, I’m starting to feel like I should revisit a little French grammar. So I was pleased last week when I came across a fantastic idea from Alex over at laptop and flipflops who gives himself a mini language goal each week. I’m going to steal this idea and learn one little grammar point per week. On Friday I’ll have a recycling day where I practice using what I’ve learned so far.
In October I listened to the delightfully funny Gritty Spanish, a set of mini dialogues for adults where the characters do naughty things like go to strip clubs and rob ice-cream trucks.
This month I’d like to use the dialogues in a more active way. Each day I’m going to one of the following:
1. Dictation: listen to the dialogue in slow mode and write down what I hear in Spanish.
2. Translation method: translate the dialogue into English then back into Spanish.
3. Mini talk: give a quick spoken summary about the dialogue.
I’m also going to take the new words and add them to my Spanish flashcards.
Finally, I’ll keep uploading one Spanish video per week on our Spanish-English Facebook group, vidiomas.
It looks like November is going to be a very busy language learning month, I’m excited! I’ll be back next month to let you know how it went.
What are your language goals? How are they going? Share them in the comments below!
Goals are good. We know that.
They turn dreams into reality and all that jazz. But working on goals involves a constant battle against the lazy part of our brains that says “uh… I’m sure it’ll just, you know, uh… get done at some point” (mine sounds like the dude from Big Lebowsky).
As I write, I’m fresh back from a break in the south of Italy and my brain is swimming with exciting language projects. And I want to make sure I actually do them.
So now seems like the perfect time to join the #clearthelist project. Clear the list is a monthly language goal setting project, run by Lindsay from Lindsay does languages and Shannon from Eurolinguiste. It’s a place for language learners to share their goals and cheer each other on.
I like clear the list project because it includes a couple of principles that are backed by scientific studies on goal setting:
1. Teamwork: Studies show that people who feel like they’re part of a team (even if they’re not physically collaborating) are more interested in the task at hand and more likely to perform better. Teamwork makes the dream work!
2. Accountability: Sharing your goals makes you more accountable for them. In one study, people who shared their goals with others and gave planned progress updates had higher success rates than people who kept their goals to themselves. When your goals are out there for all to see, you’re more motivated to put the work in to avoid looking silly. There’s a big picture of my face at the end of this post, so I’m feeling pretty accountable right now.
Could this delicate balance of teamwork and fear of public humiliation be the recipe for language learning success? To find out, I’ve decided to share my October language learning goals with you:
I’ve got 5 languages on the go and I’m going to do a little something in all of them this month.
Learning multiple languages can be tricky if you don’t manage it carefully. One strategy that works for me is to choose one language to focus on intensively (sprint language), whilst studying the others in a more relaxed fashion (marathon languages). In the “sprint language”, I immerse myself in the language as much as possible through activities like reading, watching TV and listening to the radio. Like a mad language binge, except it mostly involves reading books and listening to the radio and such. So not that mad really.
My sprint language for October is Italian, while my marathon languages are German, Chinese, French and Spanish.
This month I’m excited about going back to my first language love, Italian, which I learned during my year abroad, back in 2008.
I’ve been living in Italy on and off ever since, and my social life (and love life) has been conducted almost entirely in Italian for the last 5 years. For this reason, Italian usually gets relegated to the “languages I already know” section in my mind and I don’t dedicate much formal study time to it.
But that’s changed recently as I’ve started preparing for my C2 certificate, which I’ll be taking at the beginning of December. If you’re new to the European levels, C2 is the highest. The boss level. The Dr Robotnik of Italian language exams, if you will.
It’s good to have a goal, and I haven’t had a goal in Italian in a while. I can live and work comfortably in Italian, and at this level it’s easy to get lazy and stop making progress.
I want to shake things up, motivate myself to read/listen to new genres and practise expressing ideas in formal and academic contexts. It feels good to keep pushing my Italian.
To help me prepare for the exam, I’ll be doing the following things:
I’ve been using a workbook which focuses on vocabulary, grammar and exam skills. I’ve got 5 chapters left and I’m aiming to finish it before the month’s up. That means doing one and a bit chapters per week.
I’ll need to write a mini academic essay in the exam (eek!) so I’m going to practice writing at least one each week.
In the speaking exam, I’ll need to discuss controversial topics and current affairs. It’ll be useful to know some intellectual expressions and keep up to date with what’s going on in the world. To do this, I’m going to watch “Otto e mezzo“, a daily show in which guests debate Italian politics, and a little news every day.
I’m currently reading Gomorrah, a brilliant book by Roberto Saviano, which exposes details about organised crime in Italy. I’m aiming to finish this book and move onto a new one before the month is up.
During my holiday I took a whole 2 weeks off from studying German and Chinese, so I’m looking forward to getting back into them. I’d like to improve my speaking skills in these languages, so I’m going to do 2 conversation lessons per week on italki.
German and Chinese are my newest (and weakest languages) so I still need to build up a lot of vocabulary and get to grips with some grammar.
As well as my conversation classes, I’m planning to learn around 40 words per week in each language and do a chapter from my textbook each day (except on weekends – no textbooks allowed at weekends).
That all sounds like a lot of hard work, so I’ve got something fun planned for French and Spanish…
My French mission is to watch some delightfully trashy, so-bad-it’s-good French reality TV. Reality TV is great for boosting your listening skills as speech is more spontaneous compared to films and TV shows, so it helps you get used to how people how people actually talk. Also, you follow people going about their daily lives, which is a good way to learn everyday grammar and vocabulary. But mostly, it’s nice to know I can switch my brain off and learn some French at the same time. I’m going to aim for one 20 minute episode per day.
Just as I was wondering what to do for Spanish this month, the lovely people at Gritty Spanish sent me a copy of their course. It’s a series of funny Spanish dialogues where the characters fight, gossip, get drunk, go to strip clubs, and break the law. And it’s full of naughty Spanish words, so it’ll make a nice change from all the textbooky stuff I’ll be doing with Italian, German and Mandarin.
There are 31 chapters and 31 days in October, so I’m going to try and squeeze in one dialogue per day.
Phew! That’s it for October, I’ll let you know how it went in November.
What are your language goals? Share them in the comments below!
P.S. If you want to join #clearthelist, head over to Lindsay does languages for more details on how to get involved.
One of the best things about working on the joy of languages blog is that our readers are always sharing smart ideas about how to learn a language. This week’s post is inspired by Anne, Ken and Vanessa, who suggested keeping a journal as a way to improve your speaking skills in a foreign language.
I loved this idea and wanted to get as many people involved as possible, so I’ve set up a language diary challenge on Instagram, together with a little giveaway (more on this later).
First, let’s talk a little about how keeping a language diary can boost your speaking skills.
Writing to improve your speaking may seem counterintuitive at first. But writing helps develop the skills you need to communicate fluently. To speak a language well, you need to:
A language diary helps with all of these things on a daily basis. It’s a powerful way to improve your vocabulary, grammar and ability to express your ideas – all essential for speaking.
By writing about your day, you’ll be practicing using the vocabulary and grammatical structures that you need to talk about day to day stuff. You’ll learn how to communicate about things that are important to you and the people around you, which is much more useful than the random word lists most language courses give you.
Humans are hardwired to remember stories better than other types of information. The little snippets in your diary act like mini stories, which make the grammar and vocabulary easier to remember and reuse. You’re also likely to repeat a lot of the same words and structures, which naturally makes them more memorable.
When we learn a language, most of us focus on “passive activities” like reading and listening. But if we want to use the language to communicate, we should focus more on activities that help us produce the language. A language diary helps you draw from the vocabulary and grammar you’ve been learning to build sentences you can use in real conversations.
Keeping a diary is a great way to add consistency to your language learning and make sure that you practice using the language you’re learning in some way every day.
I started the language diary challenge on Instagram so that we can work together to help each other learn a foreign language. Research shows that people are more likely to achieve their goals when they work together as a team, so I thought it would be a great way to get a community of language learners together.
And Instagram is the perfect place to write a little something in the language you’re learning each day.
To join in, all you have to do is post a photo or video to Instagram and write/say something in the language you’re learning for 30 days.* Then use the hashtag #languagediarychallenge and tag @joyoflanguages.
You can join in at any level. If you’re a complete beginner, you could use the challenge to learn simple sentences, or individual words. For example, you could post a picture of a beer and write the word “beer” in the language you’re learning. If you’re advanced, you can practice more sophisticated vocabulary and a variety of tenses. The important thing is to write or say a little something in the language you’re learning.
In each #languagediarychallenge, I team up with a top language-learning company to give away a language themed prize. So far, we’ve given away awesome prizes from italki, add1challenge, FlashSticks, Lindsay Does Languages and irregular.endings.
I hope you’re feeling inspired to join us for the language diary challenge! To recap, there are 3 steps to join in:
1. Follow joy of languages on Instagram.
2. Post your picture or video on Instagram and write a word or sentence about it in the language you’re learning for 30 days*
3. Use the hashtag #languagediarychallenge and tag @joyoflanguages.
4. Bonus step: Take a look around and leave a comment to support the other learners on the challenge!
Looking forward to seeing your progress on over on Instagram.
*The challenge starts at the beginning of each calendar month. See @joyoflanguages for updates.
Are you joining the #languagediarychallenge? What are you going to write/speak about? Let us know in the comments below.
From crash diets to language hacking, the world is becoming obsessed with quick fixes.
The idea of learning a language in next to no time is certainly appealing. Recently, I did a language challenge to learn as much German as possible in 90 days. And I have to say, I was thrilled with the results as I went from zero knowledge of German to being able to hold a basic conversation in 3 just months.
But then I let my intensive study patterns slide a bit and I started to forget German almost as quickly as I’d learned it. Which is perhaps not that surprising, given that I’ve had blocks of Parmesan cheese for longer than I studied German.
The experience of forgetting a language in this way is new to me. Usually when I put a language aside for a few weeks or months, it’s still there when I pick it up again. Sure, it feels like I’m speaking with a sock in my mouth for the first few minutes, but it soon comes flooding back.
So why did my brain hang onto the other languages, while my German disappeared in a puff of smoke?
Because I didn’t cram the other languages. I studied them little and often, spread out over a longer time period. I let the words, sounds and sentence structures swim around my brain and settle in my memory in their own sweet time.
Studies show that we remember information better when we learn it in short sessions spread out over several days compared to in the same amount of hours crammed together. This means that if we learn something over the space of a week, we’re much more likely to remember it if we study for an hour a day compared to seven hours squeezed in over the weekend.
Why? Because because sleep is really important for building long-term memories. Remember in school when you studied really hard for a few days to pass an exam, only to forget everything a few days later? When we cram, we don’t get enough sleeps between study sessions, which makes it harder for our brains to consolidate the information we learn.
By spreading our study sessions out, we give our brains plenty of opportunity to strengthen our long-term memories during sleep. That’s why learning languages little by little makes them easier to remember in the long run.
Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed my 3 month German sprint and I got a lot out of it. But if we want lasting progress, sooner or later we have to get into the tortoise mentality and build study habits that are sustainable over longer periods of time.
The main reason people fail to create sustainable learning habits is the level of effort and commitment required. On the whole, we humans struggle with slow and steady. We want results straight away and when we don’t get them we give up. Or we go at it as fast as we can and burn out before we’ve really got started. This explains why diets, exercise programmes and most attempts at language learning fizzle out after the first few weeks.
The good news is, it’s actually quite easy to build sustainable study habits, once you’ve got the right strategies in place. These six steps will help you harness the power of slow to build lasting study habits and get that language firmly lodged in your brain:
Emily Dickinson once said, “If you take care of the small things, the big things take care of themselves”. The ability to focus on the smaller picture is essential when taking on mammoth projects like language learning. When you break your learning into tiny units and put all your energy into getting that done, the bigger picture will take care of itself. For example, I’m focusing on getting 60 minutes of German study done per day. If I can manage that most days, I should be able to speak German pretty well after a year. But I’m not thinking about that too much yet – it would be overwhelming. I’m just focusing on getting my hour done, day after day, week after week. It’s the repetition that’s key here – you can choose any amount of time that fits in with your schedule. Even 10 minutes a day can add up to big results over time.
You may have already heard of comedian Seinfeld’s popular productivity tip. To hone his comedy skills, he decided to write one joke per day and mark a big cross on the calendar for each day he did it. This simple technique works brilliantly for building long-term habits – once you’ve got a streak going, you get so much satisfaction from looking at that row of crosses that you’ll do anything not to break the chain. The method has become very popular over the last year or so and there is now a selection of fancy apps that help you record your crosses. I like Chains.cc as it allows you to share your progress with others, which gives you another reason to stay consistent (more on this in a moment). That said, a good old fashioned calendar does the trick just as well.
It’s easy to keep putting things off when you know no one’s watching. When you make your progress public, you become accountable to others, making you far more likely to keep showing up for your goals. Another advantage to sharing your progress with others is the level of community spirit and support you get from other learners. There are plenty of ways you can share your learning progress: you could start a blog or join the lovely community of language learners on Instagram by taking part in the language diary challenge.
There’ll probably be times when you miss a day or two (or three or four). Whether it’s a deadline at work, visitors, or a holiday, sometimes life gets in the way. Feeling guilty about skipped study sessions is counterproductive: it creates tension and makes it more difficult to get started again. When you find yourself off track, let it go and get back on it.
During the weekend, my German study mostly consists of me sitting in my pyjamas watching German TV. Even during the week, if I don’t feel like taxing my grey matter, I’ll make myself a cup of tea and watch something light on YouTube. Forcing yourself to do heavier stuff like studying grammar or writing when you don’t feel like it doesn’t make for sustainable language learning – sooner or later you’ll burn out and give up.
Learning a language is a bit like digging a tunnel: if you keep chipping away with your head down the whole time, you won’t see the results of your hard work. Making videos or recording audio of yourself speaking helps you step back and appreciate the accumulative effect of your study sessions. Watch the video from a few months ago and you’ll see that your pronunciation is better, your vocabulary is more advanced and your grammar is more precise. And you’ll want to keep it up so that you can see more progress a few months from now. Don’t worry if you’re camera shy, or the sound of your own voice makes you cringe a bit (mine certainly does!) these recordings can be for your eyes and ears only. Or, if you’re up for it, you can post your progress videos on YouTube to benefit from the accountability and support that goes along with sharing your language goals. I’ll be posting my German videos on my YouTube channel, and I’d love to see some of you over there too.
Have you ever learned a language and then forgotten it? Or are you trying to learn a language and struggling to stick with it? Which of the six tips can you start doing now to help you be more consistent in your language learning? Let us know in the comments below!
Mein Gott, time flies. Yesterday marked the end of my three month German Add1 challenge. I’m pleased with the progress I’ve made over the last ninety days, especially when I think back to the first day when I could barely speak a word.
Three months later, I’m able to express myself quite well, albeit slowly and with a lot of mistakes. Here I am having a lovely chat about language learning with my German tutor, Paul. Just to confuse matters we’re talking about French, Italian and Japanese, in German (turn on the subs to find out what we’re saying).
Throughout the experience, I learned three important lessons about language learning that I wanted to share with you:
Language learning often suffers the same fate as other good intentions like saving, dieting or going to the gym. We start off with bags of enthusiasm, only to burn out and sack it off after the first week or so. It’s very easy to lose motivation in the first few weeks as it can feel like you’re putting a lot of work in and not getting much back.
But language learning is all about the accumulative effect. Small steps each day add up to big results over time. My favourite thing about the Add1 challenge was that it placed just as much emphasis on building consistent study habits as it did on the final result. All I had to do was make sure I got my study time in each day, without worrying too much about where it was all going. And by the end of it, as if by magic, I found I could have a basic conversation in German.
Am I fluent in German after three months?
Nope. And I’m OK with that.
Reaching fluency in such a short time isn’t necessarily a realistic goal for everyone, especially if you’re squeezing a language in between a full-time job and other commitments.
For me, 3 months just isn’t long enough to reach true fluency in a language. But it is long enough to get to grips with common words and simple grammatical structures and to hold a basic conversation with a native speaker.
Before the challenge, I had already heard of the benefits of recording your language progress on video. In truth, it was something I’d always shied away from as I felt a bit silly. Watching yourself on video or hearing your voice can be painful in your first language, never mind in a new one, when your accent sounds weird and it takes five minutes to get a word out.
However, this time I was taking part in an online language challenge, an integral part of which was posting a progress video each month. Despite my initial scepticism, this turned out to be an extremely useful motivational strategy. When learning a language, it’s common to look at your level and get down on yourself because you’re not where you want to be yet. Having old videos of yourself is extremely encouraging as it gives you an objective measure of your progress. Going back just three months makes you realise how far you’ve come in such a short time, and perhaps more importantly, what you can achieve if you keep going for another three months.
Which of the 3 lessons did you find the most useful and how can you implement it in your own language learning? Or, if you’ve taken part in a language challenge, what’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned?
The longest I’ve ever stayed awake is 52 hours. It was 2010 and I was writing my university dissertation at the very last minute. I sat in the 24 hour library for 2 and a half days, fuelling myself with Red Bull and chocolate raisins. When I
Goals are good. We know that. They turn dreams into reality and all that jazz. But working on goals involves a constant battle against the lazy part of our brains that says “uh… I’m sure it’ll just, you know, uh… get done at some point” (mine
One of the best things about working on the joy of languages blog is that our readers are always sharing smart ideas about how to learn a language. This week’s post is inspired by Anne, Ken and Vanessa, who suggested keeping a journal as a way to
From crash diets to language hacking, the world is becoming obsessed with quick fixes. The idea of learning a language in next to no time is certainly appealing. Recently, I did a language challenge to learn as much German as possible in 90 days. And
Mein Gott, time flies. Yesterday marked the end of my three month German Add1 challenge. I’m pleased with the progress I’ve made over the last ninety days, especially when I think back to the first day when I could barely speak a word. Three months later, I’m